Eric's Beijing Diary

John contacted me this afternoon and asked if I wanted to head out to the softball field to see if we could get some tickets. Jordan decided to pass, because he didn't want to deal with scalpers. I didn't blame him, but I decided to chance it, because I had just asked John a couple days ago to let me know if he heard of any tickets being available. Besides, the ride out there only cost a few kuai.

We got there at about 6 for a game that started at 6:30. Not a lot of time to spare when you don't have tickets. Sure enough, a scalper approached us. He wanted 500 RMB for tickets that have a face value of 60. We waved him off, and John kept asking people if they had tickets. We got lucky. An American came along who had a couple extra tickets he had more or less written off as a loss. We paid him the face value and went on in.

Women's fast-pitch softball, and America was playing Japan. What irony; who am I supposed to cheer for?

It was a good game. Women's fast-pitch softball is easier to watch than baseball, because the ball park is smaller. Most of the pitches were clocking in at about 65 mph, and if I remember correctly, a fast pitch in baseball would be closer to 90. So in softball, the action is confined to a smaller space, and everything is closer, even if you have seats in the outfield. You can't really get a bad seat.

As the game started, I thought the Americans were going to finish the Japanese off pretty quickly, because the Japanese were first up to bat, and they struck out three times in a row. But my attitude changed in the bottom of the first, because the Japanese turned out to be excellent fielders. Man, they were good!

But they just could not hit. I sent Jordan a message saying there wasn't much hope for Japan. But I had to take it back in the third inning. A little Japanese lady stepped up to the plate and hit a line drive to center field and managed to take a couple bases. She eventually made it home, and this was followed by a home run.

There will probably be lots of opinions about why the Americans lost. John was born and raised in Mississippi; he knows the game a lot better than I do, so he can tell you exactly what the American coach should have done. As someone who doesn't know that much about sports, my observations are much more simplistic and straightforward.

The Japanese are not very good at batting, but they did have one or two good hitters, and they were very good at keeping the Americans from scoring. The Americans had several good hitters, and a couple very fast runners. They spent a lot more time on base than the Japanese did. But they just could not get home. They did get one home run, but that was it. Three to one, and the Japanese took the gold. Good game. Very good game.